Early Edition: Sony Takes 'Higher Ground' With Vera Farmiga

Though she's co-starred in a host of TV series and feature films, Vera Farmiga really burst on the scene with her role opposite George Clooney in 'Up in the Air.' Now the talented actress has made her directorial debut with 'Higher Ground,' a study of a woman's internal struggle with the primary love relationships in her life over two decades and her devotion to God and a small hippie church, based on 'This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost,' by Carolyn S. Briggs. The film, starring Farmiga, John Hawkes, Donna Murphy and Joshua Leonard, debuted at Sundance 2011 and now has been picked up by Sony Classics for distribution in North America, Australia and New Zealand. [Deadline]

Another acquisition has just been announced: Magnolia Pictures bought North American rights to 'Magic Trip,' a feature documentary that takes a look back at the psychedelic 60s cross-country bus tour taken by Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. 'Magic Trip' was co-directed and co-written by Alex Gibney ('Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room') and Allison Ellwood, who got access to raw footage of 16mm stock that Kesey and the Pranksters intended to turn into a documentary but never did. According to Deadline, the Film Foundation, History Films and UCLA Film Archives restored over 100 hours of footage. Ken Kesey and the 60s psychedelic movement was chronicled by Tom Wolfe in 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,' which Gus Van Sant has been developing into a movie.

Wentworth Miller, who starred in Fox's 'Prison Break' series and co-starred in 'Resident Evil: Afterlife,' will star in the $3 million-budgeted indie film 'Analog.' The film, written and directed by Mike Million ('Tenure'), follows an introverted genius who tries to find a love connection in an increasingly digital world, according to Variety. Shooting is scheduled to begin in Michigan this summer.

Kim Cattrall and Jeremy Irons have been cast in Lajos Koltai's 'The Treehouse,' a $10 million budgeted movie scripted by Paul Mayersberg from the novel by Eduard von Keyserling, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film is set in pre-World War I Germany and centers around a failed student, his glamorous cousin, her mother and the student's father. 'The Treehouse' is being sold by House of Film at the European Film Market in Berlin.

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